You know I love an Instagram Story Q&A! I did one yesterday and got so many great questions, but they disappear after 24 hours! Hooray for screenshots, though: Here are the answers to some of the questions I didn’t get to. First category: Annie and mom stuff!
What’s Annie’s favorite movie right now?
We rarely do movies with her, but this weekend, we watched the first half of Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again together, and it was one of the greatest joys of my life. (It’s my third-favorite movie, and Annie has been obsessed with the music for months, so pretty special stuff.) She was super into it!
How’s school going for Annie with Covid? Any Covid scares in her school?
It’s good! (She goes to school three days a week right now.) All the staff at the school wear masks all day, and they have a lot of protocols in place to keep everyone safe, which we of course appreciate. There was one case a few months ago where a staff member tested positive, but that person wasn’t in contact with anyone in Annie’s room, so they only closed the school for a few days to do extra deep cleaning.
Have you started potty training? We have, and oh man, it’s an adventure.
Not yet! We should. I think Annie is ready. She loves reading all her books about the potty (we have this one and this one), and we have a little pink potty for her, but we haven’t officially started the process yet.
Favorite Annie pajamas?
These ones! (They run huge, FYI. Annie is generally a size 2T right now, but the size 18-month PJs are still massive on her!)
Please recommend children’s books introducing inclusivity as a subject across race and disability.
Here are a few great roundups to start with: this one, this one, and this one.
What’s Annie’s favorite cartoon?
Micky Mouse Clubhouse. She is not interested in any other shows. I have memorized every episode by now. Miska, Mouska, Mickey Mouse!
How did you come up with Annie’s name?
You can read all about that here!
You still follow Taking Cara Babies. Have you seen her ongoing donations to Trump? Knowing this, do you think you will still endorse her page?
I have so many thoughts on this, none of which I’m sure I’ll be able to articulate the way I’d like! I loved Cara’s newborn classes and her posts so much when Annie was a newborn. Her advice helped so much, and I loved her gentle approach to parenting. It was exactly what I needed. So when this “news” broke a few weeks ago, I was mostly curious. Why was she supporting Donald Trump?
She (or her team, who knows) put out a “statement” in response, and it said nothing, and that’s actually what I found to be the most frustrating! She had an opportunity to use her platform to say this is who I support and here’s why. It’s no secret that I am adamantly not a Trump supporter, but I am a relatively open-minded person. I would have loved to hear from someone that I consider to be well-educated and progressive, and to hear why she supports this person. Instead, she said nothing. Why? If you support someone, why not explain why? (And I of course have my thoughts on why, exactly, that is…)
I don’t need to agree with everyone I support, but I do think that when it comes to Donald Trump in particular, this is a tricky line for me, since many of his behaviors and policies were and are things to which I am very strongly opposed. It’s very polarizing. I don’t support him and I do have a hard time understanding why people choose to support him. (Without going down a total political tangent here, I do want to be clear that in this instance I’m not talking about Republicans or one party vs. another. I’m talking specifically about Donald Trump and his supporters.)
So will I promote and support Cara going forward? No, I don’t think so. (I didn’t even know I still followed her, honestly — it’s been so long since I’ve needed or engaged with any of her content that it never shows up in my feed.)
Does that make sense? I hope so!
Tips on creating a running schedule as a new mom. How do you leave the house to run?
Pump and go! (Or nurse and go.) I didn’t have a schedule for a long time after Annie was born. (Try not to put too much pressure on yourself to have one! Babies are babies! Routines come in time!) I think I was probably around six months postpartum when I finally had a routine, and honestly that was mostly because I was done pumping by then, Annie was sleeping through the night by then, and I had part-time childcare. (Won’t lie and pretend I made it all happen on my own!) I would wake up at 4:25 AM to take a 5:15 AM Orangetheory class, and be home and showered before Annie woke up.
Reminder: Whatever stage of parenting you’re in, I think you’re doing great!
